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What happened
Northwestern Polytechnical University in Xi’an purchased two Nvidia H200 artificial intelligence processors for approximately $123,000 through a Chinese domestic supplier, according to university procurement records cited by Reuters.
The university has appeared on the U.S. Commerce Department’s Entity List since 2001 because of its alleged involvement in missile proliferation and military research. Federal export rules generally deny licenses for controlled American technology to blacklisted institutions.
Northwestern Polytechnical is one of China’s “Seven Sons of National Defense,” a group of universities conducting military-related research on aircraft, missiles and satellites, Reuters reported.
A broader review of 26 Chinese procurement and corporate records found that multiple universities and research institutions bought restricted American processors or rented access to Nvidia-powered computing systems. Wuhan University of Technology, for example, purchased a server containing an Nvidia H100 processor for roughly $50,000 in June, according to its procurement records.
The Trump administration relaxed some H200 export restrictions to China in January, allowing officials to consider license applications individually instead of automatically rejecting them. However, the Commerce Department said the policy did not remove restrictions on blacklisted Chinese institutions or military end-users.
Reuters reported that the investigation did not establish where the purchased processors originated, whether the transactions violated U.S. law, or whether the hardware was used for military purposes.
